44 Perkins'' Steam Engine. 



of nature were against him ; that I was pursuing experiments 

 in accordance with those laws ; and that in this consisted the 

 difference in the results to be anticipated from his labours, 

 and from mine. This gentleman expressed much surprise 

 when I explained to him the difference between condensible 

 steam, and incondensible air. 



I am now engaged in building steam artillery, as well as 

 musketry, for the French government. The English gov- 

 ernment would certainly have adopted this invention, had 

 it not been for the gratuitous and false statements of certain 

 engineers, who declared, that although I was able to make 

 a great display at the public exhibition, made by order of 

 government, yet it was delusive ; and that I had never made 

 a generator which stood for a week, and that I could not 

 keep up the steam for more than two or three minutes at one 

 time. These statements obtained credit, the more readily, 

 as any improvement in the art of war, which could be adop- 

 ted by other powers, and which would have a tendency to 

 place the weak upon a par with the strong, appeared likely 

 to benefit other countries more than England. 



The French government have determined to give our new 

 system a fair trial. A series of experiments have been made 

 at Greenwich, which were attended by the French engineers 

 appointed for that purpose, by the duke d'Angouleme, to- 

 gether with one of his aids, and prince Polignac. Their re- 

 port was so satisfactory to the French government, that a 

 contract was immediately made. An English Engineer of 

 the first class, and one who is very much employed by this 

 government, has joined me in the guarantee of the four 

 points which some of the English engineers have doubted ; 

 namely, the perfect safety of the generator, its indestructibil- 

 ity, the ability to keep the steam up, at any required tempera- 

 ture, for any length of time, and its great economy. 



The piece of ordinance is to throw sixty balls, of four 

 pounds each, in a minute, with the correctness of the rifled 

 musket, and to a proportionate distance. A musket is also 

 attached to the same generator, for throwing a stream of lead 

 from the bastion of a fort, and is made so far portable as to 

 be capable of being moved from one bastion to another. 

 This musket is to throw from one hundred to one thousand 

 bullets per minute, as occasion may require, and that for any 

 given length of time. It was an observation made in my 

 hearing, by his grace, the duke of Wellington, that any 



